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George Armstrong Custer
' George Armstrong Custer' (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, bottom of his class, but as the Civil War was just starting, trained officers were in immediate demand. He worked closely with General McClellan and the future General Pleasonton, who both recognized his qualities as a cavalry leader, and he was brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers at age 23. At Gettysburg, he commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, and defeated Jeb Stuart’s assault on Cemetery Ridge, while greatly outnumbered. In 1864, Custer served in the Overland Campaign and in Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. His division blocked Lee's final retreat and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates, Custer being present at Lee’s surrender to U.S. Grant at Appomattox. After the war, Custer was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army, and sent west to fight in the Indian Wars. On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory against a coalition of Native American tribes, he was killed along with over one third of his command during an action later romanticized as "Custer's Last Stand". His dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his career, and his legacy remains deeply divided. His bold leadership in battle is unquestioned, but his legend was partly of his own fabrication, through his extensive journalism, and perhaps more through his wife’s energetic lobbying throughout her long widowhood. Battle of the Little Bighorn By the time of Custer's Black Hills expedition in 1874, the level of conflict and tension between the U.S. and many of the Plains Indians tribes (including the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne) had become exceedingly high. European-Americans continually broke treaty agreements and advanced further westward, resulting in violence and acts of depredation by both sides. To take possession of the Black Hills (and thus the gold deposits), and to stop Indian attacks, the U.S. decided to corral all remaining free Plains Indians. The Grant government set a deadline of January 31, 1876, for all Lakota and Arapaho wintering in the "unceded territory" to report to their designated agencies (reservations) or be considered "hostile".1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The Cheyenne were not part of this treaty and had no designated agency. The reservation was for the Lakota and Arapaho. At that time the 7th Cavalry's regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, was on detached duty as the Superintendent of Mounted Recruiting Service and in command of the Cavalry Depot in St. Louis, Missouri, which left Lieutenant Colonel Custer in command of the regiment. Custer and the 7th Cavalry departed from Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17, 1876, part of a larger army force planning to round up remaining free Indians. Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1876, the Hunkpapa Lakota holy man Sitting Bull had called together the largest ever gathering of Plains Indians at Ash Creek, Montana (later moved to the Little Bighorn River) to discuss what to do about the whites.Marshall 2007, p. 15. It was this united encampment of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians that the 7th met at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian ReservationKappler, Charles J.: Indian Affairs. Laws and Treaties. Vol. II. Washington, 1904, p. 1008-1011. Treaty with the Crows, 1868. created in old Crow Country. (In the Fort Laramie Treaty (1851), the valley of the Little Bighorn is in the heart of the Crow Indian treaty territory and accepted as such by the Lakota, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho).Kappler, Charles J.: Indian Affairs. Laws and Treaties. Vol. II. Washington, 1904, p. 594. The Lakotas were staying in the valley without consent from the Crow tribe,Hoxie, Frederick E.: Parading Through History. The Making of the Crow Nation in America, 1805-1935. Cambridge,1995, p. 108. which sided with the Army to expel the Indian invaders.Dunlay, Thomas W.: Wolves for the Blue Soldiers. Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860-90. Lincoln and London, 1982, pp. 113-114. About June 15, Reno, while on a scout, discovered the trail of a large village on the Rosebud River. On June 22, Custer's entire regiment was detached to follow this trail. On June 25, some of Custer's Crow Indian scouts identified what they claimed was a large Indian encampment in the valley near the Little Bighorn River. Custer had first intended to attack the Indian village the next day, but since his presence was known, he decided to attack immediately and divided his forces into three battalions: one led by Major Marcus Reno, one by Captain Frederick Benteen, and one by himself. Captain Thomas M. McDougall and Company B were with the pack train. Reno was sent north to charge the southern end of the encampment, Custer rode north, hidden to the east of the encampment by bluffs and planning to circle around and attack from the north,Welch 2007, p. 149.Ambrose, Stephen E. (1996). Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors. New York: Anchor Books. , p. 437. and Benteen was initially sent south and west to scout Indian presence and potentially protect the column from the south. Reno began a charge on the southern end of the village but halted some 500–600 yards short of the camp, and had his men dismount and form a skirmish line.Marshall 2007, p. 2. They were soon overcome by mounted Lakota and Cheyenne warriors who counterattacked en masse against Reno's exposed left flank,Goodrich, Thomas (1997). Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865–1879. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, p. 242, testimony of scout Billy Jackson. forcing Reno and his men to take cover in the trees along the river. Eventually, however, the troopers engaged in a bloody retreat up onto the bluffs above the river, where they made their own stand.Marshall 2007, p. 4.Ambrose 1996, p. 439. This, the opening action of the battle, cost Reno a quarter of his command. Custer may have seen Reno stop and form a skirmish line as Custer led his command to the northern end of the main encampment, where he may have planned to sandwich the Indians between his attacking troopers and Reno's command in a "hammer and anvil" maneuver.Vern Smalley, More Little Bighorn Mysteries, Chapter 14. According to Grinnell's account, based on the testimony of the Cheyenne warriors who survived the fight,Grinnell, 1915, pp. 300–301. at least part of Custer's command attempted to ford the river at the north end of the camp but were driven off by Indian sharpshooters firing from the brush along the west bank of the river. From that point the soldiers were pursued by hundreds of warriors onto a ridge north of the encampment. Custer and his command were prevented from digging in by Crazy Horse however, whose warriors had outflanked him and were now to his north, at the crest of the ridge.Marshall 2007, pp. 7–8. Traditional white accounts attribute to Gall the attack that drove Custer up onto the ridge, but Indian witnesses have disputed that account.Michno, Gregory F. (1997). Lakota Noon: The Indian Narrative of Custer's Defeat. Mountain Press Publishing Company. , p. 168. }} For a time, Custer's men appear to have been deployed by company, in standard cavalry fighting formation—the skirmish line, with every fourth man holding the horses, though this arrangement would have robbed Custer of a quarter of his firepower. Worse, as the fight intensified, many soldiers could have taken to holding their own horses or hobbling them, further reducing the 7th's effective fire. When Crazy Horse and White Bull mounted the charge that broke through the center of Custer's lines, order may have broken down among the soldiers of Calhoun's command,Michno (1997), pp. 205–206. though Myles Keogh's men seem to have fought and died where they stood. According to some Lakota accounts, many of the panicking soldiers threw down their weaponsWelch 2007, p. 183; cf. Grinnell, p. 301, whose sources say that by this time, about half the soldiers were without carbines and fought only with six-shooters. and either rode or ran towards the knoll where Custer, the other officers, and about 40 men were making a stand. Along the way, the warriors rode them down, counting coup by striking the fleeing troopers with their quirts or lances.Michno (1997), p. 215. Initially, Custer had 208 officers and men under his direct command, with an additional 142 under Reno, just over 100 under Benteen, and 50 soldiers with Captain McDougall's rearguard, accompanying 84 soldiers under 1st Lieutenant Edward Gustave Mathey with the pack train. The Lakota-Cheyenne coalition may have fielded over 1,800 warriors.Michno (1997), pp. 10–20. Historian Gregory Michno settles on a low number of around 1,000 based on contemporary Lakota testimony, but other sources place the number at 1,800 or 2,000, especially in the works by Utley and Fox. The 1,800–2,000 figure is substantially lower than the higher numbers of 3,000 or more postulated by Ambrose, Gray, Scott, and others. Some of the other participants in the battle gave these estimates: :*Spotted Horn Bull – 5,000 braves and leaders :*Maj. Reno – 2,500 to 5,000 warriors :*Capt. Moylan – 3,500 to 4,000 :*Lt. Hare – not under 4,000 :*Lt. Godfrey – minimum between 2,500 and 3,000 :*Lt. Edgerly – 4,000 :*Lt. Varnum – not less than 4,000 :*Sgt. Kanipe – fully 4,000 :*George Herendeen – fully 3,000 :*Fred Gerard – 2,500 to 3,000 An average of the above is 3,500 Indian warriors and leaders.Vern Smalley, Little Bighorn Mysteries, p. 6. As the troopers of Custer's five companies were cut down, the native warriors stripped the dead of their firearms and ammunition, with the result that the return fire from the cavalry steadily decreased, while the fire from the Indians constantly increased. The surviving troopers apparently shot their remaining horses to use as breastworks for a final stand on the knoll at the north end of the ridge. The warriors closed in for the final attack and killed every man in Custer's command. As a result, the Battle of the Little Bighorn has come to be popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand". References Category:1839 births Category:1876 deaths Category:George Armstrong Custer Category:People from Harrison County, Ohio Category:American people of German descent Category:United States Army generals Category:Union Army generals Category:People of Ohio in the American Civil War Category:People of Michigan in the American Civil War Category:People of the Great Sioux War of 1876 Category:United States Army personnel who were court-martialed Category:Comanche Campaign Category:United States Military Academy alumni Category:People from Monroe, Michigan Category:Michigan Brigade Category:American military personnel killed in the American Indian Wars Category:Deaths by firearm in Montana Category:Burials at West Point Cemetery Category:Battle of the Little Bighorn